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FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
The unknowns get plenty of attention
u.s. open from D1
that Micheel is dealing with cir- cumstances that have nothing to do with a dastardly pin place- ment or sturdy, penal rough. “Sometimes,” Micheel said, “you rise under difficult situa- tions.” Micheel’s situation is this: His
mother, Donna, is dying of lung cancer at 63. She received the di- agnosis last April, and by this Mother’s Day, when Micheel re- ceived an afternoon call from his father that he should come over, she could hardly talk. “I thought I had lost my mom
then,” he said. “I picked her up and put her on the bed.” No one, among the rest of the
field, dealt with that Thursday. There were issues, of course, be- cause this is the U.S. Open. But the degree to which the game’s brightest stars struggled — not to mention the degree to which Mi- cheel excelled — was surprising, because the United States Golf Association softened the greens just a hair overnight, making them a tad easier to hold, and presented the players with some accessible pins. That may not be the case come the weekend. “Our scores say a lot about the
CHRIS CARLSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS Tiger Woods walks off the 12th tee during his 3-over-par first round at Pebble Beach, where he won by 15 strokes in 2000. J
juncture of his career, golf has chosen to give him the fattest, juiciest opportunity he could imagine — a chance to play the U.S. and British Opens at the two venues where he has had his most spectacular success. Exactly when he needs them, here come his old friends from the epochal days of the Tiger Slam — Pebble Beach, backed up next month by St. Andrews— where he won by 15 shots and eight shots in 2000. What a chance to reclaim his place in the game, repair his imagine, boost his confidence and resume his quest for Jack Nicklaus’ all-time record of 18 major championship wins. Or, with his neck still aching, the polish on his game months behind schedule and his erratic swing the subject of golf-magazine mockery, has the sport simply given Woods a chance to show that, for now at least, he really isn’t a Tiger anymore? If he can’t win at Pebble, where he shot a nerve-wracking, no birdie, 3-over-par 74 in Thursday’s first round, or The Old Course in Scotland, then the door is open for all others to challenge him. “I three-putted twice and laid up in a bunker [at the 18th hole]. Those are mistakes you just can’t afford to make,” said Woods, who was proud that he “was very consistent and very patient.” But his whole afternoon was a kind of back-teeth-grinding, don’t-show-’em-your-bleeding sort of patience as he sinned by leaving a 10-foot birdie putt short at the 17th hole, then missed a similar par putt at No. 18 to the low (amateur) side. “Keep plugging along and see where we are Sunday afternoon,” Woods said. That’s quite a difference from the man who won this same event here by 15 shots a decade ago. But that’s the point. Usually,
“plugging along” is an adequate strategy in majors. But it’s not
U.S. OPEN NOTEBOOK Undone by his putting, Mickelson has ‘frustrating’ round at Pebble Beach de Jonge. by Barry Svrluga
pebble beach, calif. —May- be Phil Mickelson could have fig- ured out, by his fifth hole of the day, that Thursday’s first round of the U.S. Open would not be his. There, on the difficult par-5 14th hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links, Mickelson — who began his day on the 10th tee — had a nice little five-footer for birdie. He missed it.
STEPHEN DUNN/GETTY IMAGES
Phil Mickelson, the second- ranked player in the world, shot a 4-over-par 75 in the first round of the U.S. Open, his first birdie- less round in three years.
By the end of an opening 4- over-par 75, that theme repeated itself. Five times, Mickelson — the second-ranked player in the world, the runner-up in five U.S. Opens — had birdie putts of 10 feet or less. Five times, he missed. The result left him six strokes in back of the lead shared by Shaun Micheel, Paul Casey and Brendon
“I just putted horrific,” Mick- elson said. “It’s very frustrating for me to miss all those opportu- nities. I don’t mind making a bad swing here, there, making a bo- gey here, there. It’s part of the U.S. Open.
“I thought going without any doubles was good. It’s just I’ve got to make birdies. And when I missed those five-footers and that three-footer and a couple of 10-footers, it just was very frus- trating for me.” The result was a birdie-less round for Mickelson, his first in three years. Mickelson also had a couple of
typical Mickelson moments. Af- ter making his first bogey of the day at the 16th, he one-hopped a 5-iron into the ocean left of the par-3 17th. He had to drop, and
made his second straight bogey there. Then, on the par-5 18th, Mick-
elson’s tee shot was barely in the right rough, some 252 yards from the front edge of the green. He took out his 3-wood, tried to hook it into a right-to-left wind — and hit it left, again toward the cliffs. Another drop, another bo- gey. “It’s just frustrating because I came in here prepared,” Mick- elson said. “I came in here ready.”
A surreal trip
Rafael Cabrera-Bello, a 26- year-old Spaniard playing his first major, had perhaps the most interesting route to get here. He left his native Canary Islands for Madrid last Saturday, discovered his visa hadn’t been approved, missed his flight, got word that
he was clear to travel, stayed at a relative’s until the next flight Sunday, and finally arrived at Pebble Beachon Monday — with- out his clubs. “You see the airline bag that
says, ‘This is the last bag out,’ ” Cabrera-Bello said, “and you’re like, ‘Oh.’ ” US Airways left his bag in Philadelphia. So when he walked the course Monday to get a feel for it, he had to borrow a couple of wedges. But he got in his two practice rounds, then was the first player off the 10th tee at 7 a.m. Thursday —and made birdie. For a time, he sat atop the lead-
er board. “I’m going, like, ‘Okay, what’s
going on right here?’ ” Cabrera- Bello said. “ ‘What am I doing up there?’ ”
Early bogeys
When Lucas Glover won the 2009 Open at Bethpage Black, he began the tournament with a double bogey. Glover’s start Thursday: bogey at 1, bogey at 2. “Giving two shots away early, I’ve been there before,” he said. He ended up shooting 73 — even par over his final 16 holes — to keep himself in the game. . . . Fairfax native Steve Marino’s
first Open round since 2007 was quite passable — a 2-over 71 in which he hit 12 of 14 fairways. Marino, who teed off in the sec- ond group of the day at 7:11 a.m., began his tournament with a bo- gey and was 2 over after five holes. But he birdied the par-5 sixth and the par-4 10th to get back to even par before bogeys at 11 and the treacherous par-3 17th.
svrlugab@washpost.com
If Woods can’t win a major here or St. Andrews, where can he? THOMAS BOSWELL
pebble beach, calif.
ust when Tiger Woods finds his personal life, his golf game and his physical health at the most vulnerable
what you expect from Woods at either of the classic courses where he has owned everything but the fishing rights. If he goes O-fer the ’10 majors, with a zilch at his other favorite track —Augusta National— already in the books this year, then don’t we have to reevaluate everything? Jack’s record? If Woods can’t win here or at St. Andrews next month, who says he’ll ever pass Nicklaus at all? This month, even the Olden Bear himself, professing faith that Woods will prevail and win at one of these two sites, has stressed their importance in the trajectory of Woods’s career. “Pebble Beach and St.
Andrews were important golf courses for him,” Nicklaus said of Woods’s pursuit of his record. “He basically won on those fairly easily through the years. If he has problems with those golf courses, sure, they won’t come around for a while. Maybe it might be tougher.” It’s hard to fathom that such a sublime career could, in just two years, come to such a juncture. But it has. Two years ago, when Woods limped off Torrey Pines after winning the U.S. Open while playing with 111 broken bones, a blindfold and only one club, it seemed inconceivable he’d fail to pass Nicklaus. He only needed five more; he still does. So, you can imagine such a shortfall, though it’d still be crazy to bet on it. Woods knows exactly what is
at stake here. You can see it in his self-controlled walk. Like a tightrope walker, his image seems accompanied by a caption: One step at a time, and don’t look down. By playing irons off several par fours on the 7,040 links, he
minimized his exposure to danger and gave his round a sense of rhythm. And, given his swing miseries, that may be wise. In what must be a unique insult for a player still ranked No. 1, Golf Magazine devoted six pages of photos, diagrams and analysis to mocking Woods’s swing, likening his mistakes to the standard bonehead blunders of its readers. The message: Whatever you do, Mr. & Mrs. 15-handicap, don’t swing like Tiger. However, Woods’s passive game off the tee also left him with only the third birdie-less round of his career in a major championship. Some in golf actually think a major-less 2010 will define Woods’s future. For a century, so many champions have had a monumental choke or defining disappointment that it has become a cliche of the game. But Woods isn’t Sam Snead making triple bogey at the 72nd to squander the U.S. Open, or Greg Norman blowing a six-shot, last-round Masters lead. By this Sunday, or at the British, Woods can regain much of his stature in the game almost immediately and probably glide past Nicklaus, perhaps breaking Jack’s record about the time he gets to Congressional Country Club for the ’11 Open. But if he fails to grab either of his summer chances, he may face an agonizing quest that could last a decade. “Certainly, the venues do set up well and some years they don’t,” said Woods who, until he actually took the course, exuded good cheer all week, saying he was “very excited” repeatedly. This good cheer is part of
what seems a Woods plan (now sans coaches of any kind) to return to a youthful state of golf grace when he “played the game for fun.” This week, he has recollected all the practice games he and his father invented and their rounds at evening, played in a calm that he now seems to apply to himself like a balm. “It’s still only a game,” he said.
Unfortunately, of all events, perhaps in all sports, the U.S. Open sets as its explicit goal the absolute and perfect removal of anything even vaguely resembling “fun.” “Generally, the Open is the highest rough we play all year. It’s the narrowest fairways, the hardest greens, the trickiest pins,” Woods said this week. “Other than that, yeah, it’s pretty simple.” To appreciate how difficult
Woods’s task is, remember all the injuries he’s coped with since Torrey Pines: knee (ACL reconstruction, the fourth surgery on that joint), Achilles’ tendon (torn), leg (two stress fractures), neck (inflamed joint) and face (careless driving). “The neck is better,” said
Woods of the latest injury that forced him to withdraw in the middle of the Players Championship. “It’s not where I want it, but it’s better, no doubt. It does get sore from time to time. But I can recover for the next day. And I haven’t had any days where I couldn’t go the next day. That’s a big step in the right direction.” Let’s review: The man who
played 91 holes with a broken leg thinks his neck may not hurt so much that he can’t play two straight days. Of course, it’s Woods’s personal travails that lie behind every aspect of his game. Asked here Tuesday if there was any resolution with his wife Elin, Woods said, “That’s none of your business.”
Right answer. But how many
golfers have answered any question with “none of your business” before playing the kind of nerveless serene golf required to win a major? I’m going with zero. Pebble Beach isn’t Woods’s
very best course to get untracked. St. Andrews is. And ’10 isn’t an absolute must season for his Nicklaus quest. But the next three days matter enormously to him. Woods loves this place, this game. Will they love him back or, as seems more likely, remain estranged?
boswellt@washpost.com
U.S. Open,” said Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, a three-time major winner, who did well to shoot 73. “You get good golf courses like this and set [them] up reason- able, in a regular event guys would shoot regular scores. But in this event, everybody gets a bit more tense.” Those who looked at Pebble’s
beauty but simultaneously con- sidered its tenacity — and then flinched a bit — included Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the top two players in the world. Their total number of birdies at the end of the day -- zero — seems implausible. Mickelson’s morn- ing round of 75 included two pen- alty strokes and five missed bird- ie putts that, strung together, to- taled less than 40 feet. Woods’s afternoon trek that led to a 74 was more methodical, and appeared to be more encouraging, until he bogeyed 16 and 18. “The greens are just awful,”
Woods said, lamenting the state of the poa annua putting surfac- es, which grew bumpy in the af- ternoon.
Others, though, seemed just
fine with everything. “It’s unbelievable,” said de
Jonge, a 29-year-old native of Zimbabwe who holed out from the fairway for eagle on the diffi- cult 14th. “Everything that goes along with it, with the tourna- ment, the venue — everything.” Micheel, too, played on the same greens, and he teed off only 44 minutes before Woods. He is by now, though, accustomed to dealing with such circumstances a bit better than he once would have. His claim to fame to this point comes from his only victo- ry, the 2003 PGA Championship.
DONALD MIRALLE/GETTY IMAGES
Englishman Paul Casey, one of the world’s top players, is looking for a victory in a major to round out his résumé.
But he has learned since then — as he struggled to recapture that moment, then battled a debilitat- ing shoulder injury that shelved him for nine months — that he’s guaranteed little in the way of free passes. Last summer, as he tried to come back from the in- jury, he gained no sponsors ex- emptions into PGA Tour events — “zero,” he said, somewhat rueful- ly.
“It’s amazing how quickly peo-
ple forget you,” he said. This year, as he simultaneously dealt with his mother’s declining health and tried to re-establish himself in the golf world, he joined the European Tour be- cause he could get into more events there, and he tried to straddle to continents. In April, while Micheel was finishing fifth in the Houston Open, he got the news that his mother’s cancer had spread to her brain. It is now in her spine, in her liver, overtak- ing her body. “I don’t think she’ll be here much past August,” he said. When Donna Micheel’s condi- tion worsened on Mother’s Day — her white blood cell count had skyrocketed, necessitating a trip to the hospital — Shaun canceled plans to play two events overseas. He needs, he said, to stay near the family’s Memphis home. And when he plays, he does so for dif- ferent reasons. “It’s nice to really be able to
play for someone other than me,” Micheel said. “It’s always been about me and my team, and where I stood on the money list, where I stood on the FedEx Cup list, and it just gets all a little bit too consuming.” Now, there are other situations about which to be consumed. The rest of the field can deal with the greens, the pins, the rough how- ever they see fit. Shaun Micheel will do the same, then call home, and realize this: “I’m really play- ing for her,” he said.
svrlugab@washpost.com
STEPHEN DUNN/GETTY IMAGES
Brendon de Jonge, an all-American at Virginia Tech who is a native of Zimbabwe, left his mark in his first U.S. Open appearance.
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